This is amazing news... up until now webOS was the only one of the Linux-based alternative mobile OSes in development (the others being Firefox OS, Jolla Sailfish and Tizen) without any actual hardware announced. This changes that. Which is awesome. Especially considering that webOS is the only one of the four that actually has a mature UI stack that's already proven to be awesome on real devices, I think it could have a real shot at a comeback, *if* it can just get the hardware support worked out.

I'm with Thom on this one. WebOS and Maemo are the two mobile operating systems that I love best and, although I really want to see them grow, I feel there is no future for them. A late 2013 timeframe to get to the point we were a few years ago seems flaky at best.

The only thing that _might_ save them, _if_ they can make the hardware, would be a compatibility layer that allowed Android applications to run unmodified. This, of couse, is doable, but requires a bit of an effort.

Another path would be to just follow another route and allow WebOS to be installed on current Android phones. Then the hardware part would not be a problem and they could "release early, release often", using enthusiastic users' current phones as testbeds. I don't know why this approach is often ignored.

Several of the Android manufacturers are concerned that there is no real alternative to Android available to them... Given that WebOS and others are also Linux based it should be relatively easy to build devices which can run any of these platforms with minimal effort. One piece of hardware, one set of kernel and drivers, and several different userland stacks.